Letters to the Editor
Arthur C. Hurwitz
Published Letters: 43 Editor's Choice: 14
-
The Reality...
[Read the article: Come, see Palestine!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Editor:
The most important thing I learned during my trips to Israel in my late teens and early twenties is that there was nothing there which I could find which I could not find better in the United States. The goal of Israeli society is to imitate the United States and use its culture. The aspirations of most Israelies is to be Americans, either through imitation and cultural consumption, or by emigration. All this "birthright" stuff is propoganda and has nothing to do with the way the actual Jewish Israelies see their country, its culture, and their personal future there.
On the other hand, the Arabs always seemed to be so friendly, both in Israel and also in the West Bank. They offer an alternative culture, attitude, and mindset which for a young person can be very appealing. Moreover, there is always a sense of being welcome and the perception that they are very nice people. This applies as much to Jews as it would to non-Jews although with Jews is often creates internal conflict. One thinks, "I came to Israel to engage my Jewish identity and now I am hanging out with Arabs?" and one wonder is he is not in some way being a traitor to the cause. One sees the injustices perpurtrated against them but at the same time, wonders if there is any political solution which would erradicate that injustice short of the destruction of Israel as a a "Jewish State." One of the ironies of Zionism is that it aspired to return the Jews to the East while the Jewish Israeli people themselves have little interest in it, they are always looking West for their spirituality while we Jews in the real West are very drawn to the culture of our Arab cousins in the East and find something of ourselves in it.
The problem with the discourse of "Taglit" and the anti-Discourse of "Birthright Unplugged" is that one aspires to the arouse a sense of nationalistic pride and "blood" support for Israel which is supposed to strengthen one's Jewish identity, discourage intermarriage, and strenghen the Jewish People. To realize these objectives, they have to emphasize the Jewish connection to the land and ignore the fact that there are other people who are also there and that the Jewish States maintains its existance and what ever security it might have at the expense and suffering of those other people. They also fail to inform its participants that Israel is a modern consumer society, similar to that of the United States, and that is the true every-day reality there for those who can afford it rather than any sort of Jewish consciousness, unless it means not being an Arab. "Birthright Unplugged" suffers from a similar problem from a different angle: In showing the sufferings of the Palestinians, one is supposed to indirectly infer that the cause of Israel is unjust and that the problem is merely a lack-of-recognition by Israel of its existence. One is supposed to correlate the official Palestinian political cause with the actual suffering of the Palestinian people. One is supposed to ignore Palestinian terrorism against Israel civillians because these simple and nice people suffer under Israeli subjugation. No effort is made to explain how the political culture of the Arabs may have contributed to that suffering. No attempt is made on either tour to explore practical solutions to the conflict which could best alleviate the sufferings of both collective identities. No attempt has been made on either tour to explain why that has not occured up until now. Both tours and their respective perspectives are nationalistic in their essence, i.e. they wish to orient a person towards some sort of loyalty to a specific group of people rather than any sort of universal political principals or ideals.
The conclusion is that no one can visit that country through any sort of programmed even without being used and manipulated in one way or another. As I have gotten older I have realized that the best thing for us to do is stay out of it.
Sincerely yours,
-
Security in the U.S. has Other Agendas...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Editor:
The reason that security at Ben Gurion Airport is so effecient, effective, and professional is that its goal is just that: protecting those whos riding on the jetplanes of the passenger airlines from the threat of hijacking and/or a bomb exploding in the air.
Security in the U.S. has always had another agenda. As we have been able to observe, the Bush Administration has no true interest in protecting the citizens of this country from another "09/11"-style terrorist attack, rather they have been trying to ruthlessly exploit this event to justify a greater scrutiny of the political and private lives of people present in the U.S., U.S. citizens or not, legal or not.
For that reason, we can never have true and effective security at our airports or for that matter, at our ports. The security issue here will always be part of a larger agenda in a section of the political class which is to spy of U.S. citizens and find ways to harass or imprison those whom they regard a threat to their policies or as "subversive."
Sincerely yours,